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Posts Tagged ‘cameras’

Here are PopSci's very first looks at technologies, like the telephone and the Internet, that went on to be rather successful

For this gallery, we've hit the archive and assembled a few of our often-breathless first looks at these now-ubiquitous, then-revolutionary technologies that went on to reshape our modern lives.
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Some inventions, such as the fax machine, excited us, and others we approached with surprising caution. MP3 players didn't appear on the cover until 2001, three years after we first covered them.

The unveiling of the telephone received only a simple news brief (in a section called "Popular Miscellany").

Sometimes we were right and sometimes we were wrong, but regardless of the thinking of the time, we've got it all documented for your browsing pleasure. Click through our gallery to see PopSci's first stories on everything from the introduction of talking motion pictures to the unveiling of the first MP3 player.

PopSci's very first looks at technologies, like the telephone and the Internet, that went on to be rather successful

The Imaging System for Immersive Surveillance, or ISIS, is less a wholesale breakthrough and more a combination of various video surveillance technologies into a single package that can be bolted to a ceiling or mounted on a high vantage point. Rather than employing a single camera, each ISIS module packs several individual cameras, allowing it to provide high-resolution video from edge to edge of wide vistas.

To do so, it relies on state-of-the-art video stitching technology that pulls disparate video feeds into one seamless picture in real time. Total resolution capability reaches 100 megapixels -- the equivalent of 50 full-HDTV movies playing simultaneously -- offering ISIS technicians to take in huge scenes with extreme clarity. Overlap between video feeds and a unique interface allows them to focus in on a particular person or point while still maintaining a view of the larger picture.

On top of the hardware magic, a collection of software apps are being developed that will allow ISIS to perform other high-tech tasks, like create exclusion zones that ISIS monitors automatically, alerting security personnel if the area is breached. It also will allow operators to tag a target, following a person or object moving across the landscape, panning and tilting as needed to keep visual contact with the target.

ISIS is being tested at Boston's Logan airport, but DHS is already eyeing a second-gen version of the system that has more sensors, longer-range cameras, infrared capabilities, and a more discreet frame that is smaller than a basketball. Which means that, unlike Orwell's Big Brother, this one could be watching and you might not even know it.

[Science Daily]

And that's not all: The camera's sensor also records the smallest pixel currently in the field, a mere ten millionths of a meter (roughly one tenth the size of a human hair). Add it all up, and it's one pretty sweet piece of machinery, with the ability to capture not only the highest quality of detail in images, but to produce a depth of vision you can only get by adding the third dimension.

The camera employs a sophisticated range-finding technique to add depth to its frames, bathing its subjects in ultra-short laser light pulses (ultra-short being just a few billionths of a second) that bounce off the subjects much like radar. A complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) micro-sensor picks up the laser bursts as they return to the camera, measuring each pixel's distance from the camera. From that data, the camera can place each pixel in space, adding a third dimension to its vision.

While the obvious film-making implications of such a device conjure James-Cameron-esque fantasies, the applications are far wider. The researchers envision the camera sensor assisting the elderly and disabled, its reliable eye for spatial arrangements keeping watch for dangerous situations that could cause falls or other accidents. Security cameras fitted with such a sensor could be greatly improved with a third dimension enhancing their ability to follow a subject in a crowd. The same tech could aid smarter guidance systems that could give turn by turn instructions to a person as they navigate the corridors of unfamiliar buildings.

We're more interested in video games. A 3-D camera could not only "see" a player moving in 3-D, but could add a third axis of sophistication to those movements by "seeing" when a player moves forward or backward in space. This kind of technology could lead to a true peripheral-free era of gaming where players need nothing more than their consoles and their own bodily movements to achieve a seriously sophisticated gaming experience.

[Science Daily]

The shot was captured over more than three hours using a Canon 7D mounted to a robotic GigaPan camera mount that uses imaging technology similar to that found on NASA's Mars rovers. The sweeping shot is actually 4,250 individual shots cobbled together seamlessly with Autopano stitching software.

Said Donovan: "This was intended as a technical test. It was about exploring the limits of the hardware and software out there."

Which raises the question: Did we find the limit? The last record-holding digital panorama came in at 26 gigapixels, so the Dubai image is a significant advance. Given the fact that the image is composite, it's really not a matter of camera hardware; the robotic mount and the camera could, theoretically, snap more than 4,250 individual shots of a landscape. So it's really a matter of software and the processing power needed to stitch together the larger images. Which means that if the tools to make a larger digital pic don't exist yet, they certainly will at some point.

And what good is a record if it's never broken? In the meantime, check out an interactive version of the image on GigaPan's site. If you think the image above looks like any other panorama, zoom in. And zoom in some more. If this is the closest you ever get to Dubai, it's still really, really close.

The Omni-Focus Video Camera is based on a novel distance-mapping principle that allows the camera to capture both near- and far-field images in real-time, high-resolution focus. It does so by employing an array of color video cameras, all focused at different distances. The Divergence-ratio Axi-vision Camera -- the key component in the new video rig -- then maps each pixel in space. Software then stitches a composite image together using the most focused pixels at each distance, creating omni-focused video in real time.

The ability to bring an entire scene into focus regardless of its depth could vastly impact the commercial film industry and A/V hobbyists alike, but the inventors see it also making waves in defense, security, and medicine. Security cameras could capture large swaths of real estate with unprecedented clarity, and doctors using laparoscopes for less-invasive surgeries could better see what's going on inside a patient without constantly adjusting optics.

But we're still a bit fuzzy on the details behind the tech; physically speaking, two different cameras cannot capture identical images because they cannot occupy the exact same space at the exact same time. As such, it seems like the compositing process would slightly distort or dull the images, especially as the software tries to do all of this in real time. That being said, if the Omni-focus Video Camera works as well as the University of Toronto team says it does, we want one.

[PhysOrg]

New zoom mast cameras could allow the Curiosity rover to take cinematic video sequences in 3-D

Cameron approached NASA administrator Charles Bolden about including the 3-D camera in January, according to the AP. NASA had originally cut the 3-D camera and zoom lens options back in 2007, for budgetary reasons.

But Cameron's argument that a high-res 3-D camera would boost public interest swayed Bolden to his side. The U.S. space agency recently funded completion of the 3-D and zoom-capable cameras by Malin Space Science Systems, Inc, the company which developed the Mastcams.

Restoring the zoom is not a science issue, although there will be some science benefits," said Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mastcam. "The fixed focal length Mastcams we just delivered will do almost all of the science we originally proposed. But they cannot provide a wide field of view with comparable eye stereo."

That has led to a scramble to build and test the zoom lens cameras before the MSL rover commences final testing in early 2011. The two Mastcams under development would have 15:1 zoom lenses which can image from telephoto (100mm focal length) down to wide-angle (6.5mm focal length).

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) rover is slated to carry four science cameras mounted on a remote sensing mast, where they can pan or tilt to take images all around the rover out to the horizon. All of the cameras currently have fixed focal lengths.

By contrast, the zoom lenses would allow for "cinematic video sequences in 3-D on the surface of Mars," Malin noted. Given our Hubblegasm review of Hubble 3D, it's safe to say that we're crossing our fingers for Cameron to get his proper filmmaking tools in time for blastoff to Mars.

[Malin Space Science Systems]